


A Meal Well Done

by botgal



Category: Hiveswap
Genre: Cooking, Gen, Physical Therapy, after her legs got broken, trying to help her walk again, when tegiri was taking care of polypa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-07-01 00:08:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15762558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/botgal/pseuds/botgal
Summary: Polypa needs to regain her strength, and get used to walking again. Tegiri helps her kill two birds with one stone.





	A Meal Well Done

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a sucker for another ship don't look at me.

The sound of some anime, barely paid mind to except as background noise, blared in the background of the densely decorated hive. Polypa shakily stood on her two feet, leaning heavily on a shelf with less anime memorabilia than others (didn't want to risk breaking any of her host's shit while trying to learn how to walk again). Technically speaking she really shouldn't have been trying to do this without said host being present, unless she wanted to end up curled up in pain with her legs screaming at her in rage on the ground. But Polypa was determined to try to regain her independence. She would have to leave this hive eventually, and with the flame of anger burning in her healing heart, she was going to do it without needing to ask for help again. It would just take some time.

Perhaps more than she would have liked, she realized, as her legs gave out from under her. She cursed out loud, hearing the laugh-like bark of Tegiri's lusus somewhere nearby. Yeah yeah, laugh it up dumb barkbeast. First thing she was doing when she was finally back on her own two feet was giving the stupid thing a swift kick.

She heard the sound of the hive door opening, and quickly rolled on back to her makeshift recuperacoon. A simple sopor futon with just enough sopor slime to come an inch or two off of her body. She shuddered in relief as her legs rested in even that much of it. Seeing as she had been unable to put them into it when they were still in casts, when the pain was at its worst, the simple relief now was incredible.

“Tadaima!” Tegiri called out into the hive, stepping in once his shoes were off. Polypa casually pushed herself up onto her elbow, trying to look as if she had been in the midst of resting and watching the anime playing on the TV. Lunar Seafarer, she thought. Good series. Would have to rewind the episode later so she could watch it while actually paying attention.

“Welcome back,” she replied.

“Oh, good. You've been resting,” he observed with a nod. “I'm glad you're taking my advice. It wouldn't be good for you to hurt yourself if you tried getting around without me right now.” Oh yeah. Wouldn't that be a shame...

“Yeah, well. I want it to heal back right,” she replied. “Just decided to pop in some anime.” He glanced at the screen, where the end credits song was playing, and nodded.

“I see. Good episode,” he noted. He slipped off his sword and put it on the empty space on the rack, head turned in her direction. “In any case, the subject of my interest is actually your legs. I had an idea of what you could do to get your strength built up, since we're rehabilitating you to it gradually.” Polypa tilted her head with interest.  
“Oh really? And what would that be?” She asked, honestly curious. He held up a bag he had carried in when he entered the hive.

“That will be revealed in a bit. Just sit back a while longer and prepare yourself to stand up in a bit.” She shot him a thumbs up and he disappeared into the food preparation block. Well, guess she was getting double the practice today. She lay back, after rewinding the episode, wondering just what he had in mind.

By the time the episode had finished (she had actually enjoyed it while paying attention), Tegiri had emerged from the food block again, and nodded.

“Alright. I think we're ready.” He helped her sit up and did a deft job of helping her wipe the sopor from her back before hauling her onto his back and carrying her to the kitchen. He seemed scrawny, but she supposed if he had carried her out of her destroyed hive, he could do something like this with relative ease, even if not as much as a blueblood or higher would.

When he put her down, it was next to what looked like a towel on the floor, set up over something lumpy.

“Okay, so just what am I doing here?” Polypa asked curiously.

“I figured, since you need to regain your footstrength, you need to work your feet somewhat, but not on anything too hard. So, I figured this would be a productive way to do it.” He motioned to the towel. “This will provide some resistance for you to work your legs, and a soft enough surface it should be easy on your feet and legs.”

“That's... actually pretty clever,” she admitted. “Alright. I'll give it a try.” He helped her up onto the towel, and she felt whatever it was, lumpy but soft, beneath her feet. He offered to hold her arms while she stepped up and down, but she opted for leaning on the counter instead. It took a bit of getting used to, but once she got into a steady rhythm, it was easy enough. Once in a while he told her to step off, having her sit while he readjusted the towel, or whatever was under it, before having her get back up and start stepping again. On one of such times, she finally spoke up again. “So, Tegs.” He looked up, hands paused in what he was doing. “What exactly is this stuff I've been stepping on for the past ten minutes?”

“You'll see when it's all done,” was all he said, before getting back up and helping her to her careful leaning position again. This reply made her curious, but she didn't dig too deeply on it. He did weird stuff sometimes, just how he was.

Not long after, Tegiri had declared she'd done enough and hauled her back to her futon. Thank goodness, she had been getting tired, anyway. She settled in for another episode of Lunar Seafarer while she waited for him to finish up.

Which ended up turning into a few episodes with all the time it took him to get over there. He came into the room again, holding two large, steaming bowls.

“Well it's about time. I was wondering if I was going to have to crawl my way over there to see if you got your head stuck in the thermal hull or something,” she said as she sat up. “What've you got there, anyway?”

“Dinner,” he replied, setting it down on the small fold out table they were using for her to eat on the floor. He sat at the opposite end of it and set some chopsticks down for each of them. She'd gotten pretty good at them since living with him (kind of had to when she was unable to properly use both hands for all the pain for a good amount of time, but it still counted.).

They both declared a loud 'itadakimasu' (one of habit, one of humoring) before digging in. Polypa hummed appreciatively as she tasted the rich broth with the noodles.

“This is pretty good,” she admitted. “Did you make this from scratch? No wonder it took so long,” she mused. “Still tastes good, though.”

“I should hope it did. You helped, after all,” he replied. Polypa looked at him with confusion, before she remembered the towel and her aided working of her legs.

“Wait, was I stepping on the dough?!” she asked, more out of surprise than anything.

“Well, yes. That's how Eastern Alternian thick noodles are usually kneaded,” he replied. “It's difficult to do with your hands, very labor intensive. So it's done with the feet.” Tegiri slurped up a cheekful of noodles, nodding. “And you did a very good job of it. The dough was kneaded to perfection. And you seemed like you were doing well enough moving on it. Maybe we should start doing this as part of your regiment as you rehabilitate.”

Polypa felt the urge to laugh and call him a gigantic nerd at the same time. She did neither, and took up another few noodles between her eating implements, sucking them up and chewing them carefully before answering. A slight smile across her face.

“If you keep making them this good, I might consider it.”

 


End file.
